Beastly by Alex Flinn

Expect to see increased interest in Alex Flinn’s YA novel Beastly, a retelling of beauty and the beast.  I heard that they are showing this teaser trailer before New Moon.  If you have a copy of Beastly on the shelf, why not display it or add it to a Twilight display?

National Book Awards

The winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature is Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Phillip M Hoose.   Does this mean Hoose will win the Newbery?  History is against him.  Only Holes has won both the Newbery and the National Book Award since 1996, when the Young People’s Literature category was added.

We have four copies of Claudette Colvin, all on the shelf with no holds.  I encourage you to grab those copies and display them on the circ desk with a NBA note or wait for a patron to ask about it and see how quickly your copy is checked out.  Other finalists this year were:  Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith, Stitches, Lips Touch: Three Times, and Jumped.  NBA YP Lit nominees and winners are often titles for older readers, and this year was no exception.  We have all of these titles in the YA section, with the exception of Stitches, which is an adult graphic novel.

Odd and the Frost Giants

School Library Journal has an interview with Newbery award-winning author Neil Gaiman regarding his new JFic book, Odd and the Frost Giants. Check out the audio version, it is narrated by Neil Gaiman, and he’s an excellent narrator.

The Next Lightning Thief

You may have already heard that Rick Riordan’s next series is about Egyptian mythology and the first book, The Red Pyramid, will be released in early May.  The Red Pyramid is on order and should show up in the catalog any day now for holds to be placed.  I can only hope that there are some new kids’ books on Egyptian gods and goddesses in the works now.  I’ll be on the lookout for them!

Display Ideas

Friday I took a trip up to Stevenson.  The Stevenson branch is looking great and I took these two photos of their current displays to share. The first one is a Thanksgiving display.  There was a pine cone turkey and an array of Thanksgiving magazines, DVDs, and cookbooks.  The sign says “Let’s Talk Turkey.”  The second display inspires patrons to start thinking about making holiday gifts and decorations.  In addition to crafting books, the display includes yarn, candles, baking pans, lavender, and soaps.  What great timing for this “Home-made Holiday” display!

Winnie the Pooh

There is a new Winnie the Pooh book out, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, by David Benedictus.  I haven’t read it but I paged through it and enjoyed the illustrations.  We also have the audio version on order read by Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter audiobooks.  Speaking of audiobooks, we just received a fantastic audio version of the original Pooh stories called The Collected Stories of Winnie-the-Pooh.  Narrators include Stephen Fry and Judi Dench, and it sounds like a delightful listen.  A new book that I found reminiscent of Pooh is The Squirrel’s Birthday and Other Parties by Dutch author, Toon Tellegen.  I’m not one to try and predict a Batchelder winner, but I wouldn’t be surprised if The Squirrel’s Birthday got a nod from the committee (if it is eligible,)  come January.

More Wimpy

Check out this interview with Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney at School Library Journal.  He explains why he hasn’t quit his job yet and what he’s working on now (hint: Wimpy Kid #5!)

If You Like Diary of a Wimpy Kid…

Since every time I mention Diary of a Wimpy Kid on this blog my blog hits go way up, I decided to post my Diary of a Wimpy Kid Readalikes list here.  These books all share some aspect with the Wimpy Kid books, irreverent humor, illustrations, or the trials of middle school.  There is sure to be something here for every Wimpy Kid fan.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Readalikes

Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics by James Sturm

Dork Diaries : Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell

Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon

Knights of the Lunch Table by Frank Cammuso

Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen

Max Quigley, Technically Not a Bully by James Roy

Raymond and Graham Rule the School by Mike Knudson

True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

Series:

Amelia’s Notebook series by Marissa Moss

Candy Apple series by Erin Downing

Dear Dumb Diary series by Jim Benton

Time Warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka

Underwhere series by Bruce Hale

Wayside School series by Louis Sachar

 

Authors:

Andrew Clements

Jack Gantos

Andy Griffiths

Dan Gutman

 

Coming Soon to Your Library…

A Second is a Hiccup by Hutchins.  Explains time from seconds, (a hiccup, spinning in a circle once,) to a minute, (singing a short song,) all the way to a year.

Islands of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer, the final book in the Sea of Trolls Trilogy.  The book and the audiobook both already have holds.

How Loud Can You Burp? by Murphy.  (As loud as a motorcycle!) This follow-up to Why is Snot Green? continues to answer real questions asked by kids like: why do we get goosebumps?  Includes a pretty lengthy section on questions regarding climate change, like where will be the best place to live?

Also, why the sudden influx of Toy Story books?  Toy Story and Toy Story 2 have been re-released to theaters in 3-D.

In the Media

Read or listen to an interview with the author (and producer of The Daily Show,) of the new kids’ book, I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President, here. And an interview with Diary of a Wimpy Kid author, Jeff Kinney, here. And here is an article from The New York Times on the Baby Einstein video refunds. It turns out there is no basis to their claim that watching the videos will make your baby smarter! Surprise!